Sales Interview: Role-Play Round

The scenario

Rosa Kwan, the hiring manager for this Account Executive role, running the live role-play portion of your interview. For the exercise she plays Priya Okafor, Head of Support Operations at a mid-size SaaS company, who is evaluating a support-analytics tool. In character, Priya is busy, has sat through "a hundred of these tools" before, and downplays her own pain by reflex. Rosa is not hostile to you personally — she wants to see whether you ask before you pitch, whether you push past a brush-off instead of accepting it, and whether you close with a real next step instead of letting the conversation trail off. She is quietly taking notes on composure the whole time, not just on what you say.

You are in the final round for an Account Executive role. Rosa Kwan, the hiring manager, hands you a one-page scenario and says: "Sell me Beacon, our support-analytics tool. I run a 30-person support team and I'm skeptical. Go." From that line on, Rosa stays in character as Priya Okafor for the rest of the exercise. You know going in that support teams like hers typically struggle with escalations they only hear about after the account is already upset, and that whoever actually controls new-tool budget is rarely the support director herself. Your job is to run this exactly like a real discovery-to-close call — ask before pitching, quantify whatever pain she admits to, find out who actually owns the budget, handle her pushback without caving or over-claiming, and end with a specific, booked next step. This is being graded as your role-play round, so how you handle it matters as much as what you say.

Expect these pushbacks